Examination of Witness (Questions 51-59)
MIKE BAKER,
PETER JAMIESON
AND JOHN
KORZENIEWSKI
15 JUNE 2009
Chairman: Welcome and thank you very
much for your written submissions. Eric Martlew will start the
questions.
Q51 Mr Martlew: Can I start on
apprenticeships? I hear about all sorts of schemes and initiatives
coming from Government. I shall give you an example. I had a phone
call on Friday afternoon from a mother who was very distressed
and not very happy with the Government—and my Government
at that—because her son, who was a 17-year-old apprentice
plumber, had been paid off and she could not find anywhere where
he could continue his apprenticeship. Is that a general factor
across the region? Are initiatives being talked about but nothing
is happening? I phoned Jobcentre Plus and was told I had to phone
Connexions and somebody else. What is the reality on the ground
for apprentices who have been paid off up and down this region
about them continuing their training?
Mike Baker: Can I introduce myself?
I am Mike Baker, the Director of Customer Services at Jobcentre
Plus, and I started last month. Peter Jamieson, our Regional External
Relations Manager, is here to deal with some of the detail. Peter,
would you like to deal with that question?
Peter Jamieson: There is a package
of support available as part of the Rapid Response Service for
all individuals faced by redundancy. Specifically for apprenticeships,
LSC offers support for individuals not currently on apprenticeship
programmes but facing redundancy. John, can you continue?
John Korzeniewski: First, there
is no issue in funding apprenticeship places. The issue is the
take-up by employers. You described a particular issue we are
having to respond to at the minute where youngsters may be laid
off as a result of the recession. There are a number of things
that we can do. We are setting up employer pools where employers
can share. We are setting up college-based provision where youngsters
can finish their apprenticeship by doing the last few months—depending
on where they are in the system—off the job, as it were.
We are aware of the issue and we do have things in place. There
is no issue about funding provision; it is about dealing with
the individual cases as they come through.
Q52 Mr Martlew: Can I clarify
that? I am using this example. A small employer decided he could
not afford it any more. A young lad had done a year and was made
redundant. Are you saying there is a guarantee that he will be
able to complete his apprenticeship?
John Korzeniewski: No, I didn't
use the word "guarantee" because the issue is about
the individual circumstances and the place. What I am saying is
that we have schemes in place, which in most cases will be able
to deliver what that young person needs. It is difficult to talk
specifics without having that in front of me. One route is to
allow employers to share apprenticeships; another is to allow
providers such as colleges to finish off with that youngster,
if they have got so far. We also have schemes where, although
we cannot use the word "subsidy", we are able to provide
a small amount of funding to help an employer support the costs
of employing that person. We do have a range of things in place.
Q53 Mr Martlew: This is general
knowledge out there in the community, is it?
John Korzeniewski: If you are
asking me whether every single employer in these circumstances
knows about all of this, then, well, you are quoting an example
of an employer who does not, but we are doing our best to ensure
that the knowledge does get out there.
Q54 Mr Martlew: Can I go on more
generally now? What effect has the recession had on your workload?
Mike Baker: To make a general
statement and add in some detail. It has had a significant and
quite huge effect. In the last 12 months the jobseekers' register
has gone up in the North-West by 75%, which is just below the
national curve but nevertheless a significant increase. We are
still taking vacancies. We take in 35,000 vacancies per month
in the North-West, which is below the figures we would have expected
last year but they are holding up. An important point within Jobcentre
Plus is that typically throughout 2008 we had around 26,000 people
coming on to benefit and broadly that number leaving benefit.
The figures now are 35,000 leaving the register, so although we
have increased our off flows, which is a positive point to make,
it has not kept pace with the on flows. Overall, we have responded
in three ways. We have recruited people in the North-West, the
second biggest region in Jobcentre Plus—we announced in
April that we would employ an additional 1,800 staff. We have
also looked at how we can maximise the use of our premises. Very
importantly, we have looked at our processes, because not only
have we had this huge increase, but we have got a very different
type of customer coming through and some will be presenting as
unemployed for the first time. So, our package of measures has
had to change.
Q55 Mr Martlew: When we had full
employment, did the numbers employed in Jobcentre Plus go down?
Did the numbers you employ go down?
Mike Baker: Yes.
Q56 Mr Martlew: Was that the right
policy?
Mike Baker: Well, in the spending
review 2004 we were set the challenge overall—Department
for Work and Pensions had a headcount reduction from 130,000 to
100,000. I know that we are now reversing that trend. Whether
the policy was right, I'm not sure I'm qualified to say.
Mr Martlew: Perhaps that was a leading
question.
Q57 Tony Lloyd: There is a real
issue here, because if you are recruiting very significant numbers
of new people, there is a training issue if you use Jobcentre
Plus. The issue for us is how quickly those new people are not
simply in post, but in post and useful to my constituents. What
is the time scale around which you get proper value out of them?
Mike Baker: It will clearly vary,
depending. A new recruit to Jobcentre Plus—to the civil
service—will clearly not be as productive as someone who
has been in the Department some time. We are actively ensuring—right
across the DWP, to the wider family, if you like—that we
are taking staff from across the Department. In fact, we have
taken more than 750 staff who have transferred from other Departments.
We are also looking at whether we can slim down our support areas,
because all of the money that we have been given by the Government
has gone directly to front-line staff. There is clearly a learning
curve. We are well experienced with training. Last year, with
the Employment and Support Allowance, just within the North-West,
we trained 1,000 staff within the two-month window. We have actually
increased our training support, but clearly we understand that
customers who come through our door will often have very difficult
stories, and needs that we must meet immediately, so we ensure
that we have things like nursery sections and consolidation sections.
We are absolutely convinced that the way to support customers
coming through the door is to offer a personal service—an
individual service—because every customer is different.
Without the back-up and training, our staff cannot do that, so
it is something that we put a lot of effort into.
Q58 Tony Lloyd: Without being
rude, and bearing in mind that people who come to MPs are people
who have a difficult story to tell, obviously from time to time
people come along and say that they have had a non-personalised
service, and that they have been treated as number 722 for the
day. How can we get over that, to make sure that people are properly
given something in the end that leaves them in a better position
to access the labour market?
Mike Baker: I was with Barbara
Keeley on Friday morning, dealing with one of her constituents—a
very sad case, and we had just not given the service. I cannot
give Barbara or that constituent or customer the answer that,
generally, we get it right, because for that customer we did not.
We just have to learn our lessons. Overall, we are meeting all
of our targets. I am not just saying this because I am new, but
I am proud to work for Jobcentre Plus and I am proud of what the
staff are doing. I think we are learning. We have targets that
we have to meet, including one target that we call the Customer
Service Target, which involves mystery shoppers coming into our
business to test how well—or not well—we are doing.
We learn lessons from that. But we have had a whole range of new
packages introduced, we have had a completely different client
base in certain areas, and it is a steep learning curve. It isn't
easy, and I appreciate that we don't always get it right.
Q59 Mr Martlew: Mr Baker, you
said that you have 35,000 vacancies a month. What areas of work
are they in?
Mike Baker: They are changing.
I shall ask Peter to help with the detail. Probably the most sought-after
jobs are in the professional and managerial areas, and those are
not where the vast majority of jobs are. There has been an increase
in public sector jobs and retail trade is holding up well, particularly
in Liverpool. Across the region we have certainly got very different
levels of employment and unemployment. Peter, do you want to deal
with the sectors?
Peter Jamieson: One of the growth
areas in terms of vacancies notified is, as Mike has pointed out,
the public sector. The other growth areas are business administration
and retail. Those are the three sectors where we are seeing the
majority of vacancies notified. Unfortunately, the vacancies sought
by many of our jobseekers are in different occupational areas.
We are seeing a high number of people from a professional and
executive background, and a high number of manufacturing jobseekers
coming on to the market. So there is an issue in terms of the
correlation between vacancies sought and vacancies notified, but
the majority of vacancies in terms of our growth have been in
the retail service sector and the public sector.
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